LI  BRAKY 

University   of 

California 

Irvine 


SEEDS  OF  TIME 


SEEDS  OF  TIME 


BY 
JOHN  DRINKWATER 

Author  of  "  Abraham  Lincoln  :  A  Play,"  "  Mary  Stuart :  A  Play 
"  Poems:  1908-1919,"  etc. 


//  you  can  look  into  the  seeds  of  time, 
And  say  which  grain  will  grow  and  which  will  not, 
Speak  then  to  me,  who  neither  beg  nor  fear 
Your  favours  nor  your  hate. 

MACBETH 


BOSTON"   AND    NEW   YORK 

HOUGHTOX  MIFFLIN  COMPANY 


1922 


COPYRIGHT,  IQ22,  BY  JOHN  DRINKWATER 
ALL  RIGHTS  RESERVED 


CTfjc  J&ibctsibe 

CAMBRIDGE  •  MASSACHUSETTS 
PRINTED  IN  THE  U.S.A. 


TO  THE  MEMORY  OF 

CLAUD  LOVAT  FRASER 


NOTE 

Some  of  these  poems  have  appeared  in  the  follow- 
ing periodicals  and  I  thank  the  Editors  for  their 
courtesy:  Century,  Christian  Science  Monitor,  The 
Dial,  Hearst's,  Literary  Review,  McClure's,  Munsey's, 
Nation,  New  Republic,  North  American  Review,  Pic- 
torial Review,  Poetry  Magazine,  Scribner's,  Vanity 
Fair,  and  The  Yale  Review.  Fifty  copies  of  "Per- 
suasion" have  been  privately  printed. 

J.D. 


CONTENTS 

THRIFT  3 

THE  TOLL-GATE  HOUSE  4 

A  LESSON  TO  MY  GHOST  5 

ABSENCE  8 

A  NEW  BALLAD  OF  CHARITY  9 

THE  RECORDER  12 

THE  WOOD-CARVER  13 

THE  DYING  PHILOSOPHER  TO  HIS  FIDDLER  14 

THE  FLAME  15 

THE  GARDEN  16 

HEREAFTER  17 

VOTIVE  1 8 

Two  SHIPS  19 

PORTIA'S  HOUSEKEEPING  20 

NIGHT  Music  22 

IN  THE  VALLEY  24 

MALEDICTION  25 

SPECTRAL  27 

THE  CRY  29 

WHO  WERE  BEFORE  ME  30 

THE  YEARS  32 

To  AND  FRO  ABOUT  THE  ClTY  34 

VOCATION  35 

FAIRFORD  NIGHTINGALES  36 


x  CONTENTS 

BEACONS  37 

ENGLAND  TO  CZECHOSLOVAKIA  39 

THE  MAN  WHO  WON  THE  WAR  40 

JOHN  KEATS  41 

SAMPLERS  42 

To  WASTE  NOT  43 

THE  BOND  44 

DECISION  45 

SURETY  46 

UNION  47 

AGAINST  TREASON  49 

FOR  THIS  MOMENT  5° 

DEATH  AND  A  LOVER  51 

THE  PLEDGE  S3 

NUNC  DIMITTIS  54 

THE  PROVIDENCE  55 

COVENANT  56 

PERSUASION  57 


SEEDS  OF  TIME 


SEEDS    OF    TIME 

THRIFT 

(TO  F.  L.) 

No  beauty  beauty  overthrows, 
But  every  joy  its  season  knows, 
And  all  enchanted  hours  prepare 
Enchantment  for  to-morrow's  wear. 

Who  in  the  just  society 

That  walks  with  him  this  hour  can  see 

But  shadows  of  another  bliss 

Loses  both  that  delight  and  this. 

Grieve  not  the  parting  day,  for  soon 
The  nightingales  will  sing  the  moon 
Climbing  the  track  that  now  the  sun 
Leaves  when  the  songs  of  day  are  done. 

And  grieve  not  when  her  beauty  pales, 
And  silence  keeps  the  nightingales_ 
For  that  eclipse  again  will  bring 
The  sun  with  all  his  birds  to  sing. 


THE  TOLL-GATE  HOUSE 

THE  toll-gate's  gone,  but  still  stands  lone, 

In  the  dip  of  the  hill,  the  house  of  stone, 

And  over  the  roof  in  the  branching  pine 

The  great  owl  sits  in  the  white  moonshine. 

An  old  man  lives,  and  lonely,  there, 

His  windows  yet  on  the  cross-roads  stare, 

And  on  Michaelmas  night  in  all  the  years 

A  galloping  far  and  faint  he  hears  .  .  . 

His  casement  open  wide  he  flings 

With    "Who    goes    there?"    and    a    lantern 

swings  .  .  . 

But  never  more  in  the  dim  moonbeam 
Than  a  cloak  and  a  plume  and  the  silver  gleam 
Of  passing  spurs  in  the  night  can  he  see, 
For  the  toll-gate's  gone  and  the  road  is  free. 


A  LESSON  TO  MY  GHOST 

SHALL  it  be  said  that  the  wind's  gone  over 
The  hill  this  night,  and  no  ghost  there? 
Not  the  shape  of  an  old-time  lover 
Pacing  the  old  road,  the  high  road  there? 
By  the  peacock  tree,  the  tree  that  spreads  its 

branches 

Like  a  proud  peacock's  tail  (so  my  lady  says), 
Under  a  cloudy  sky,  while  the  moon  launches 
Scattered  beams  of  light  along  the  dark  si- 
lences ? 

I  will  be  a  ghost  there,  though  I  yet  am  breath- 
ing* 

A  living  presence  still  in  tight  cottage  walls, 
Sitting  by  the  fire  whose  smoke  goes  wreathing 
Over  fields  and  farmyards  and  farmyard  stalls. 
As  a  player  going  to  rehearse  his  faring, 
I  will  send  my  ghost  there  before  my  bones  are 

dust, 

Bid  it  learn  betimes  the  sock  it  shall  be  wearing 
When  it  bids  the  clay  good-bye,  as  all  ghosts 

must. 
Hush,  then;  upstairs  sleep  my  lady  and  her 

mother; 
The  cat  curls  the  night  away,  and  will  not 

stir; 

Beams  of  lamp  and  beech-log  cross  one  another, 
No  wind  walks  in  the  garden  there. 


SEEDS  OF  TIME 

Go,  my  ghost,  it  calls  you,  the  high  road,  the 

winding, 
Written   by  the  moonlight  on   the    sleeping 

hill; 

I  will  watch  the  ashes,  you  go  finding 
The  way  you  shall  walk  for  generations  still. 
The  window-latch  is  firm,  the  curtain  does 

not  tremble, 

The  wet  grass  bends  not  under  your  tread, 
Brushing  you  shake  not  the  rain  from   the 

bramble, 

They  hear  no  gate  who  lie  abed. 
Nodding  I  stare  at  the  hearth,  but  I  see  you, 
My  half-wit  travels  with  you  the  road; 
There  shall  be  your  kingdom  when  death  shall 

free  you, 

When  body's  wit  is  neither  leash  nor  goad. 
Past  the  peacock  branches  proudly  gliding, 
Your  own  ghost  now,  I  know,  I  know, 
You  look  to  the  moon  on  the  hill-top  riding, 
The  mares  in  the  meadow  sleep  as  you  go. 
Your  eyes  that  are  dark  yet  great  for  divin- 
ing 

Brood  on  the  valleys  of  wood  and  plough, 
And  you  stand  where  the  silver  flower  is  shin- 
ing 

Of  cherry  against  the  black  holly  bough. 
Rehearse,  O  rehearse,  as  you  pass  by  the  hedge- 
rows, 


A  LESSON  TO  MY  GHOST 

Remembrance  of  all  that  was  my  bright  will, 

That  so  my  grave  of  whispers  and  echoes 

May  rest  for  the  ghost  that  is  yet  on  the  hill. 

The  primroses  burn  and  the  cowslips  cover 

The  starry  meadows  as  heaven  is  clad; 

Learn  them  all,  O  ghost,  as  a  lover, 

So  shall  your  coming  again  be  glad. 

The  inn-sign  hangs  in  the  windless  watches, 

You  pass  the  shadowy  piles  of  stone 

Under  the  walls  where  the  hawthorn  catches 

Shapes  from  the  moon  that  are  not  its  own. 

Wander,  wander  down  by  the  cresses, 

Over  the  crest  of  the  hill,  between 

The  brown  lych-gate  and  the  cider-presses, 

Past  the  well  and  across  the  green. 

Heed  me,  my  ghost,  my  heir.   To-morrow, 

Or  soon,  my  body  to  ash  must  fall. 

Heed  me,  ghost,  and  I  shall  not  sorrow  — 

Learn  this  beauty,  O  learn  it  all. 

Night  goes  on,  the  beech-log's  ended, 

Half-wit's  drowsy,  and  doctrine  done,  — 

Ghost,  come  home  from  the  road;  befriended 

My  moon  shall  be  when  I  leave  the  sun. 


ABSENCE 


THIS  was  a  fair  land 

For  the  young  soul  to  find, 
Whose  orchards  are  renewed 
And  blossom  in  the  mind. 

Far  wave,  far  heaven,  far  hill, 
I  dream  of  England  still. 

And  now  this  year's  primrose 

Shines  under  last  year's  leaves. 
The  swallow  searches  out 
Accustomed  eaves. 

Far  wave,  far  heaven,  far  hill, 
I  dream  of  England  still. 

Though  fresh  devices  come, 

Yet  is  my  custom  true; 
There  my  vocation  is, 
That  was  my  cradle  too. 

Far  wave,  far  heaven,  far  hill, 
I  dream  of  England  still. 


A  NEW  BALLAD  OF  CHARITY 

GOD  knows  how  time  shall  use  me  yet, 

For  I  with  brain  too  wise  have  known 
A  world  corrupt,  nor  can  forget 

Some  evil  there  as  still  my  own  — 
Poor  griefs  henceforth  may  be  alone 

My  calendars  to  reckon  by, 
But  in  my  empires  overthrown 

I'll  keep  a  heart  of  charity. 

Wronged,  and  wrong  doing,  still  I  '11 
pray 

For  gentleness  to  all  my  kind, 
So  soon  to-morrow  strikes  to-day, 

And  then  a  day  when  all  is  blind, 
And  the  vainglory  of  the  mind 

Passes,  and  all  together  lie 
Where  nothing  is  but  hope  to  find 

The  excellence  of  charity. 

There  is  no  virtue  in  us  all 

But  keeps  with  sin  for  housefellow, 
And,  when  the  blade  of  death  shall  fall, 

Starveling  and  naked  must  we  go; 
And  none  of  all  shall  warrant  show 

To  save  him  from  damnation  by, 
But  only  this  —  "Dear  God,  you  owe 

All  that  I  dealt  of  Charity." 

9 


SEEDS  OF  TIME 

And,  O  you  English,  let  us  make 

Our  hearts  a  little  wise  to-day, 
And  learn  for  best  religion's  sake 

To  walk  awhile  the  homeward  way. 
Too  long  we  cast  an  alien  clay 

And  towards  a  far  and  fading  sky 
Too  long  a  pilgrimage  we  pay  — 

For  there  is  not  our  charity. 

Since  I  am  English  bred,  I'll  keep 

A  year  and  year  my  journey  still 
By  little  Langdale  tarns  asleep, 

Or,  with  my  rhymes  on  Bredon  Hill, 
I  will  go  shepherding  until 

The  shires  from  Severn  down  to  Wye 
Are  figured  messages  to  fill 

My  quietness  with  charity. 

And  where  the  yellowhammer  sings 

From  bramble  blooms  in  Water  Lane 
I'll  make  a  world  of  sweeter  things 

Than  are  in  blind  ambition's  brain, 
And  there  I  will  forget  the  pain 

Of  envy  and  the  fears  defy 
That  in  love's  bitterness  complain  — 

Because  I  walk  with  charity. 

The  primroses  of  Bagley  Wood, 
Old  apple  trees  at  Piddington, 
IO 


A  NEW  BALLAD  OF  CHARITY 

Helvellyn  in  his  cloudy  hood  — 
Shall  I  not  write  them,  one  by  one, 

The  true,  the  best,  occasion 
Of  all  my  faith  before  I  die? 

For  other  gospellers  are  none 
To  teach  me  holy  charity. 


II 


THE  RECORDER 

IT  was  not  dawn;  in  the  full  day 
I  drowsed  my  wits  in  sleep,  < 

And  let  the  rich  world  steal  away,  , 
Without  a  song  to  keep. 

Then  from  a  dripping  timber-stack, 
Where  the  wild  thistle  grew, 

Spreading  his  scarlet  plumes  and  black, 
Again  the  loud  cock  crew. 


12 


THE  WOOD-CARVER 

(TO  w.  G.  s.) 

OUT  of  his  ash  did  he  conceive  her  mood, 
Repentant  Eve,  her  sad  face  bowed  among 
Cascades  of  hair,  her  limbs,  that   had    been 

dewed 

Lately  in  Eden  where  the  apples  hung, 
Now  carved  for  ever  in  a  lovely  sorrow, 
All  love,  all  grief,  all  kindred  with  the  flowers 
That  now  flush  wood  and  meadow,  and   to- 
morrow 

Are  ghosts,  are  tears  among  remembered  hours. 
O  little  Eve,  bowed  in  your  loss  for  ever, 
Bowed  bosom  and  clasped  hands  and  hidden 

face, 

We  are  your  sorrow  too,  and  master  never 
The  loss  of  spring  and  the  wild  April  grace  — 
We  love,  and  sin,  and  lose,  as  you  to  be 
An  image  carved  in  beauty  from  the  tree. 


THE    DYING    PHILOSOPHER    TO   HIS 
FIDDLER 

COME,  fiddler,  play  one  tune  before  I  die. 

Philosophy  is  barren,  and  I  lie 

Untouched    now   by    the   plagues   of   all   the 

schools, 
And  only  silly  fiddlers  are  not  fools. 

Bring,  then,  your  bow,  and  on  the  strings  let  be, 
In  this  last  hour,  merely  the  melody 
Of  waves  and  leaves  and  footfalls  hazardous, 
Where  crafty  logic  shall  not  keep  with  us. 

The  patient  fields  of  knowledge  did  I  sow; 
I  have  done  with  knowledge  —  for  I  nothing 

know. 

Wisdom  and  folly  set  their  faces  hence, 
And  in  their  eyes  a  twin  intelligence. 

Only  your  notes  may  quick  again  the  keen 
Tree-shadows  cut  upon  the  paddock's  green, 
The  pools  where  mirrored  branches  are  at  rest, 
The  heron  lifting  to  her  windy  nest. 

And  these  are  things  that  know  not  argument; 
Come,  fiddler,  play;  philosophy  is  spent. 
Out  of  my  thought  the  chiding  doctors  slip, 
And  you  are  now  the  only  scholarship. 


THE  FLAME 


MYSELF  I  do  but  find 

An  ashen  mind, 
While  others  greeting  me 

Are  flames,  I  see. 
Yet  they,  alone,  lament 

Flames  that  are  spent, 
Remembering  with  shame 

My  crystal  flame  .  .  . 
Hereafter  then  I'll  be 

A  flame  to  me. 


THE  GARDEN 

STONE  walls,  dear  trees,  worn  paths  of  every 

day, 

Because  you  have  lived  so  cleanly  in  my  mind 
Something  of  me  for  ever  in  you  shall  stay, 
When  I  the  smaller  acre  yet  shall  find. 
When  noon  is  bright  I  shall  be  with  your 

flowers, 

With  you  the  snows  of  winter  I  shall  wear, 
And  when,  enchanted  in  the  midnight  hours, 
You  are  a  silver  lake,  I  shall  be  there. 

And  none  shall  know,  or  few;  yet,  knowing  not, 
The  stranger  here  shall  with  your  spirit  take 
Into  his  heart  a  kinship  unforgot 
That  still  you  tell  in  numbers  for  my  sake, 
And  in  your  mute  occasion  then  shall  be 
Some  whispered  word  that  once  you  learnt  of 
me. 


16 


HEREAFTER 

ONE  evening,  by  "some  hearth,  I  know  not 

when, 

A  stranger  to  my  song  shall  come  to  read 
What  faring  was  my  lot  through  times  and 

men, 

How  I  was  proud,  how  sorry,  with  what  heed 
I  was  glad  of  women,  and  the  stars,  and  corn 
Swelling  upon  my  windy  Cotswold  height,  i 
What  miracles  I  counted  in  the  morn, 
And  how  I  was  defeated  at  the  night. 
And  he  shall  make  some  story,  as  I  make 
Of  men  who  sang  as  Marvell  and  as  Donne, 
And  he  shall  quick  his  wisdom  for  my  sake, 
And  put  the  plumes  of  celebration  on, 
And  tell  how,  as  of  old,  the  clouded  brain 
Of  man  in  song  was  a  bright  heaven  again. 


VOTIVE 

O  MOON,  swung  there  immeasurably  far, 
Yet  only  in  the  pear-tree  top,  how  then 
Shall  we  body  in  thought  the  beauty  that  you 

are  — 
Your  wizardry  upon  the  souls  of  men? 

Hush!  Let  us  say  it  is  the  tender  light 
That  falls  in  silver  circumstance  and  red 
Dimly  upon  the  regions  of  the  night, 
And  saying  this  how  little  then  is  said! 

Why  should  this  mute  enchantment  thus  pos- 
sess 

Our  hearts  in  adoration?  How  should  come 
This  worship  of  a  ghost  of  quietness, 
Of  spectral  tides  that  move  not  and  are  dumb? 

Why  do  we  worship?    We  are  but  strays  of 

will, 

While  the  sun  takes  us.   Folded  now  and  far 
From  the  day's  light,  we  are  minds  possessed 

and  still, 
Vision  and  peace.   We  worship  what  we  are. 


18 


TWO  SHIPS 

THE  morning  shone  with  April  on 

A  little  silver  ship  at  sea, 

With  happy  sails,  and  bearing  bales 

To  Panama  from  Tripoli, 
And  fortunately  bound 
She  went  without  a  sound. 

Into  the  night,  forlornly  bright, 
There  came  a  little  ship  of  gold; 
Without  a  name,  she  passed  in  flame, 
With  cargoes  never  to  be  told, 
Out  of  a  port  unknown, 
Swinging  to  death  alone. 


PORTIA'S  HOUSEKEEPING 

WE  are  thrifty  of  joy  in  this  our  modern  house; 
We  probe  the  springs  of  joy  with  uneasy  rods, 
And  shadow  the  worm  in  every  thrilling  bud. 
Virtue  we  know  will  walk  in  seedy  rags 
Of  knavery  when  the  better  humour  fails; 
And  we  know  the  good  man's  shadow  of  desire. 

It  was  not  so  with  Portia.   She  was  simple, 

Plain  for  clear  yes  or  no  and  good  or  bad. 

Bassanio  at  Belmont  in  the  evening, 

Walking  the  terrace  with  Antonio, 

Was  a  good  man  with  his  friend,  and  that  was 
all, 

Save  that  his  lips  were  young  and  masterful. 

She  had  no  fine  philosophy  of  sin; 

You  lied,  and  that  was  bad.   You  gave  your 
word, 

And,  when  time  came,  redeemed  it.   A  treas- 
ure kept 

At  another's  cost  was  ashes  in  your  hand. 

She  liked  her  roses  red,  her  lilies  white, 

And  counted  punctual  hours  in  guests  a  vir- 
tue. 

Sometimes  she  thought  of  a  Jew  and  a  young 
doctor 

Standing  before  the  majesty  of  Venice, 

And  smiled,  without  approval,  then  again 
2O 


PORTIA'S  HOUSEKEEPING 

To  sow  the  asters  or  feed  guinea-fowl. 
Gratiano,  finding  ever  new  Ncrissas 
Among  her  maids,  she  told  not  to  be  tedious, 
And  Gratiano  said  she  was  growing  dull. 
She  liked  the  verse  Lorenzo  took  to  writing 
And  made  some  tunes  herself  upon  the  lute 
To  fit  a  little  moonlight  sequence.   When 
Launcelot  Gobbo  stole  a  goose  at  Christmas, 
She  did  not  say  he  was  an  honest  fellow, 
But  rated  him  and  almost  sent  him  off; 
He  did  n't  brag  about  it  to  his  fellows. 
She   had    two   children,    and    said    two   were 

enough, 

And  loved  them.  She  believed  there  was  a  God 
With  an  impatient  ear  for  casuistry. 
Bassanio  had  no  regrets,  but  some 
Agreed  with  Gratiano.   I  do  not  know. 
In  Belmont  was  a  lady  richly  left? 


21 


NIGHT  MUSIC 

(TO  B.  v.  j.) 

ENCHANTED  as  those  days  in  Caliban's  isle, 
A  music  from  the  night  falls  on  my  hill, 

And  variously  played. 

In  the  hushed  moonrise  many  sounds  there  are, 
Inaudible  but  to  the  moods  of  prayer, 

Into  one  music  made. 

Over  the  foothills  from  the  valley  comes 
The  lowing  of  some  straggler  from  the  herd, 

Roaming  in  pastures  deep. 
A  sheep-dog's  challenge  through  the  dark  is  met 
By  the  ewe  mothers  and  their  lambs  that  now 

Are  muffled  flocks  of  sleep. 

Sweeping  across  the  fern  twin  measures  go, 
Towards  Worcester  one,  and  Hereford,  where 
weave, 

Glooming,  a  pair  of  jars. 
Faintly,  afar,  a  brown  owl  speaks  the  night, 
And  hears  high  up,  from  out  these  hill-top  pines, 

His  mate  among  the  stars. 

And,  under  all,  the  wind  about  the  gorse 
Creeps,  or  as  fire  rushes,  and  burns  up 

All  sound  into  one  song. 
And  in  the  night  it  flows  about  my  grief, 
22 


NIGHT  MUSIC 

Healing  a  little,  as  on  Sctcbos 
Was  cased  that  older  wrong. 

So  in  my  heart  beauty  with  beauty  strives, 
And  good  slays  good.   O  spirit  of  wisdom,  run, 

As  the  wise  wind  to-night, 
Through  me,  and  make  my  crazy  tunes  all  one; 
Upon  the  trouble  of  my  blindness  bring 

Light,  and  for  ever  light. 


IN  THE  VALLEY 

LET  none  devout  forgive  my  sin 
Who  have  not  sinned  as  I; 

The  soul  immaculate  within 
Has  not  to  measure  by 
My  sorrowing  husbandry. 

The  dark,  the  error,  of  my  days 
Shall  be  consoled  by  none 

That  have  not  in  forbidden  ways 
Wandered  as  I  have  done 
With  faces  from  the  sun. 

Princes  of  virtue,  keep  your  skill 
Of  pardon  for  your  peers; 

Frail  with  the  frail  I  travel  still 
Along  uncertain  years  — 
Forbear  your  holy  tears. 

One  hour  in  black  Gethsemane 
I  walked  with  Him  alone. 

He  sees,  He  knows,  He  touches  me 
How  shall  it  then  be  known 
To  you,  O  hearts  of  stone? 


MALEDICTION 

THRUSH,  across  the  twilight 
Here  in  the  abbey  close, 
Pouring  from  your  lilac  bough 
Note  on  pebbled  note, 
Why  do  you  sing  so, 
Making  your  song  so  bright, 
Swelling  to  a  throbbing  curve 
That  brave  little  throat? 

Soon,  but  a  season  brief, 
The  lice  among  your  feathers, 
Stiff-winged  and  aimless-eyed, 
With  song  dead  you  shall  fall; 
Refuse  of  some  clotted  ditch, 
Seeking  no  more  berries  — 
Why  with  lyric  numbers  now' 
Do  you  the  twilight  call? 

Proud  in  your  tawny  plumes 
Mottled  in  devising, 
Singing  as  though  never  sang 
Bird  in  close  till  now  — 
Sharp  are  the  javelins 
Of  death  that  are  seeking, 
Seeking  even  simple  birds 
On  a  lilac  bough. 

25 


SEEDS  OF  TIME 

Crushed,  forlorn,  a  frozen  thing, 

For  no  more  nesting, 

For  no  more  speckled  eggs 

In  pattered  cup  of  clay, 

Soon  your  song  shall  come  to  this, 

You  who  make  the  twilight  yours, 

And  echoes  of  the  abbey, 

At  the  end  of  day. 

In  the  song  I  hear  it, 

The  thud  of  a  poor  feathered  death, 

In  the  swelling  throat  I  see 

The  splintering  of  song  — 

What  demon  then  has  worked  in  me 

To  tease  my  brain  to  bitterness  — 

In  me  who  have  loved  bird  and  tree 

So  long,  so  long? 

Until  I  come  to  charity, 

Until  I  find  peace  again, 

My  curse  upon  the  fiend  or  god 

That  will  not  let  me  hear 

A  bird  in  song  upon  the  bough, 

But,  hovering  about  the  notes, 

There  chimes  the  maniac  beating 

Of  black-winged  fear. 


26 


SPECTRAL 

WHAT  will  the  years  tell? 
Hush!  If  it  would  but  speak  — 
That  shadow  athwart  the  stream, 
In  the  gloom  of  a  dream; 

M 

Could  my  brain  but  spell 
The  thought  in  the  brain  of  that  weak 
Old  ghost  that  hides  in  the  gloom, 
Over  there,  of  the  chestnut  bloom. 

I  sit  in  the  broad  June  light 

On  the  open  bank  of  the  river, 

In  the  summer  of  manhood,  young; 

And  over  the  water  bright 

Is  a  lair  that  is  overhung 

With  coned  pink  blooms  that  quiver 

And  droop  till  the  water's  breast 

Is  of  petal  and  leaf  caressed. 

And  the  June  sky  glares  on  my  prime  - 
But  there  in  the  gloom,  with  Time, 
Huddled,  with  Time  on  its  back, 
Is  a  shadow  that  is  my  wrack. 

Yes,  it  is  I  in  the  lair, 
Peering  and  watching  me  there. 
Under  the  chestnut  bloom 
27 


SEEDS  OF  TIME 

My  old  age  hides  in  the  gloom. 
And  the  years  to  be  have  been, 
Could  I  spell  the  lore  of  that  brain. 
But  the  river  flows  between, 
Over  the  weeds  of  pain, 
Over  the  snares  of  death, 
Maybe,  should  I  leap  to  hold, 
With  myself  grown  old, 
Council  there  in  the  gloom 
Under  the  chestnut  bloom. 

And  so,  with  instruction  none, 

I  go,  and  leave  it  there, 

My  ghost  with  Time  in  its  lair, 

And  the  things  that  must  yet  be  done 

Tear  at  my  heart  unknown, 

And  the  years  have  tongues  of  stone 

With  no  syllable  to  make 

For  consolation's  sake. 

But  peradventure  yet 

I  shall  return 

To  dare  the  weeds  of  death, 

And  plunge  through  the  coned  pink  bloom, 

And  cry  on  that  spectre  set 

In  its  silent  ring  of  gloom, 

And  slay  my  youth  to  learn 

The  thing  that  my  old  age  saith. 


28 


THE  CRY 


DEAR  life,  be  merciful  and  kind; 
Lend  me  your  hand,  for  I  am  blind; 
Lend  me  your  wit,  for  mine  too  soon 
Inhabits  with  the  spectral  moon; 
Prepare  your  still  intelligence 
To  watch  beside  my  ailing  sense. 

Life,  I  have  made  my  pilgrimage 
All  as  you  bade,  and,  wage  by  wage, 
Your  service  seemed  but  well  to  me. 
Now  gentle  in  persuasion  be, 
When  after  you  I  fall  and  bleed, 
And  hear  not  where  your  footfalls  lead. 

My  song  no  tardy  messenger 
Has  been  of  any  word  that  there 
Dwelt  from  your  charge  for  witnessing. 
Let  me  not  be  an  outcast  thing, 
Dear  life,  this  weather,  from  your  fold, 
With  a  great  heart  untimely  old. 

In  faith  to  you  have  laboured  long 
My  blood,  my  purposes,  my  song. 
In  faith  to  you  my  hope  is  dumb, 
To  this  poor  waste  of  darkness  come. 
O  life,  forsake  me  not,  who  lie 
Broken  upon  your  Calvary. 
29 


WHO  WERE  BEFORE  ME 

LONG  time  in  some  forgotten  churchyard  earth 
of  Warwickshire 

My  fathers  in  their  generations  lie  beyond  de- 
sire, 

And  nothing  breaks  the  rest,  I  know,  of  John 
Drinkwater  now, 

Who  left  in  sixteen-seventy  his  roan  team  at 
plough. 

And  James,  son  of  John,  is  there,  a  mighty 
ploughman  too; 

Skilled  he  was  at  thatching  and  the  barley- 
corn brew, 

And  he  had  a  heart-load  of  sorrow  in  his  day, 

But  ten  score  of  years  ago  he  put  it  away. 

Then  Thomas  came,  and  played  a  fiddle  cut  of 
mellow  wood, 

And  broke  his  heart,  they  say,  for  love  that 
never  came  to  good  .  .  . 

A  hundred  winter  peals  and  more  have  rung 
above  his  bed  — 

O  poor  eternal  grief,  so  long,  so  lightly,  com- 
forted. 


WHO  WERE  BEFORE  ME 

And  in  the  gentle  yesterday  these  were  but 

glimmering  tombs, 
Or  tales  to  tell  on  fireside  eves  of  legendary 

dooms; 
I  being  life  while  they  were  none,  what  had 

their  dust  to  bring 
But  cold  intelligence  of  death  upon  my  tides 

of  Spring? 

Now  grief  is  in  my  shadow,  and  it  seems  well 

enough 
To  be  there  with  my  fathers,  where  neither  fear 

nor  love 
Can  touch  me  more,  nor  spite  of  men,  nor  my 

own  teasing  blame, 
While  the  slow  mosses  weave  an  end  of  my 

forgotten  name. 


THE  YEARS 


WHEN  I  was  young  and  twenty 

I 'Id  run  a  many  mile, 
And  when  I  came  to  thirty 

I  'Id  sit  and  rest  awhile, 
And  now  that  I  am  thirty-five 
I  am  the  sleepiest  man  alive. 

But  maybe  when  I'm  forty 

I'll  shake  my  legs  again, 
And  walk  from  then  till  fifty 

With  young  and  striding  men, 
And  hillward  go  in  sixty's  wear 
To  see  how  yet  the  counties  fare. 

When  I  am  old  and  eighty, 

All  treasons  will  be  done 
Of  love  and  silly  bitterness, 

And  I  shall  watch  the  sun 
Go  out,  and  little  heed  the  fear 
That  smote  upon  my  middle  year. 

So  twenty  comes  to  eighty 

By  many  a  stony  track, 
And  times  I  have  for  merchandise 

But  sorrows  in  my  pack; 
But  youth  foretold  them  not,  and  yet 
Age  will  but  count  them  to  forget. 

32 


THE  YEARS 

So  though  I  come  from  twenty 

To  be  at  thirty-five, 
Beset  by  fears  and  fancies, 

The  sleepiest  man  alive, 
Some  birthday  yet  I'll  rise  and  keep 
A  prouder  soul  before  I  sleep: 

Before  I  sleep  at  eighty, 

Never  again  to  know 
The  hill-tops  and  the  counties 

And  striding  men  below, 
And  furious  fevers  fade  away 
To  song,  and  into  grass  my  clay. 


33 


TO  AND  FRO  ABOUT  THE  CITY 

SHAKESPEARE  is  dust,  and  will  not  come 
To  question  from  his  Avon  tomb, 
And  Socrates  and  Shelley  keep 
An  Attic  and  Italian  sleep. 

They  will  not  see  us,  nor  again 
Shall  indignation  light  the  brain 
Where  Lincoln  on  his  woodland  height 
Tells  out  the  spring  and  winter  night. 

They  see  not.   But,  O  Christians,  who 
Throng  Holborn  and  Fifth  Avenue, 
May  you  not  meet,  in  spite  of  death, 
A  traveller  from  Nazareth? 


34" 


VOCATION 


THIS  be  my  pilgrimage  and  goal, 

Daily  to  march  and  find 
The  secret  phrases  of  the  soul, 

The  evangels  of  the  mind. 

While  easy  tongues  are  lightly  heard, 
Let  me  with  them  be  great 

Who  still  upon  the  perfect  word 
As  heavenly  fowlers  wait. 

In  taverns  none  will  I  be  seen 
But  can  my  daemon  teach 

My  cloudy  thought  to  wash  all  clean 
In  the  bright  sun  of  speech. 


FAIRFORD  NIGHTINGALES 

THE  nightingales  at  Fairford  sing 

As  though  it  were  a  common  thing 

To  make  the  day  melodious 

With  tones  that  use  to  visit  us 

Only  when  thrush  and  blackbird  take 

Their  sleep  nor  know  the  moon's  awake. 

These  nightingales  they  sing  at  noon, 
Not  lyric  lone,  but  threading  June 
With  songs  of  many  nightingales, 
Till  the  meridian  summer  pales, 
And  here  by  day  that  spectral  will 
Is  spending  its  enchantment  still. 

Nor  shyly  in  far  woodland  bowers, 
But  walled  among  the  garden  flowers, 
The  Fairford  nightingales  are  free, 
That  so  the  fabled  melody 
Is  from  the  haunted  groves  of  Thrace 
Falling  on  Fairford  market-place. 

O  nightingales  that  leave  the  night 

To  join  the  melodists  of  light, 

And  leave  your  coppiced  gloom  to  dare 

The  fellowship  forsaken  there, 

Fresh  hours,  fresh  leaves  can  dispossess 

Nor  spoil  your  music's  loneliness. 

36 


BEACONS 

ONE  home  together  by  the  fells  we  knew 
And  the  blue  brakes  of  England  in  the 

spring, 

And  we  had  sires  who  also  heard  the  bells 
Somewhere  along  the  English  meadows.  We 
Measure  one  cause,  one  spirit,  and  one  word, 
And  in  one  pilgrim  faith  have  done  our  part 
In  the   slow  world's  devising.   Some  queer 

grain 

Of  oak  out  of  our  soil  moulded  alike 
The  Mayflower,  the  Revenge.  The  East  has 

dreams, 

Lotus  and  temples  and  the  circled  fingers, 
Building  in  contemplation.  The  sun  returns 
Yet  to  the  South  with  Mediterranean  song, 
And  Provence  bears  the  old  Athenian  gift, 
And  still  is  heard  the  praise  of  troubadours, 
Which  is  for  service;  from  the  Siberian  fields 
A  sobbing  and  a  moving  in  the  night, 
Where  a  great  lineage  communes  with  the 

earth, 

Till  grief  is  beauty  and  the  wise  revelation. 
So  from  the  races  life  inherits  well, 
Stillness,  and  flight,  and  faith.  And  we  the 

West, 

Whose  tides  from  Kent  to  California  move, 
Shall  we  not  be  the  new  adventurers? 

37 


SEEDS  OF  TIME 

America,  you  were  in  Shakespeare's  word, 
And  Milton's,  half  a  prophecy.   You  were 
An  Ironside  when  Cromwell  took  the  field,V 
Drake  fared  for  you,  and  Nelson  is  your  blood. 

And  England,  little  fens  and  pools  and  hills, 
Green  friendliness  of  pastures  in  the  dusk, 
White-thorn  where  thrushes  nest,  grey  thatch 

and  stone, 

What  excellence  of  you  was  there  that  day 
When  an  unnoted  sail  put  out  to  sea 
From  Plymouth  to  the  England  of  a  dream? 
At  Yorktown  did  your  nobler  heart  lament , 
Among  the  lost  or  beat  with  Washington? 
And  has  not  Lincoln  in  your  proper  tongue 
Your  chronicle  retold  of  Runnymede? 
Then,  pledged  upon  a  happier  covenant 
Than  furnished  old  crusades,  with  none  to  fear 
Of  arms  or  treasons,  having  for  our  faith 
To  covet  not  an  acre  of  the  world, 
Shall  we  not  be  the  new  adventurers? 
Come  —  let  us  get  our  gospel  now  by  heart  — 
One  man  in  grief  sets  a  whole  world  in  tears; 
No  man  is  free  while  one  for  freedom  fears. 


ENGLAND  TO  CZECHOSLOVAKIA 

ONCE  —  in  the  day  of  our  meridian  song 
And  young  armadas  —  on  your  Bohemian  hill 
An  older  fame  suffered  an  alien  wrong 
Where  arms  again  blasphemed  a  people's  will. 
And  freedom  slept  among  your  heroes  then, 
Sepulchred  on  White  Mountain,  till  a  theme 
Of  the  unforgotten  music  called  again, 
And  sovranty  was  where  had  been  a  dream. 

Fortune,  for  all  our  wisdom,  we  can  shape  not; 
Being  free,  we  yet  are  kinsmen  of  the  blind; 
The  snares  of  our  own  hearts  we  can  escape  not; 
Our  bravest  end  is  fortitude  of  mind  — 
But^Masaryk  knows,  Bohemia  knows,   that 

thence 

The  spirit  of  man  walks  in  magnificence. 
May,  1920 


39 


THE  MAN  WHO  WON  THE  WAR 

THE  PASSING  OF  HIS  BODY 

WHOEVER  sinned  in  this,  it  was  not  he, 
While  warriors  of  the  tongue  defiled  our  name, 
His  was  no  casual  service,  nor  shall  be 
A  casual  fame. 

To-day  let  all  philosophies  be  dumb, 
And  every  ardour  pause  a  moment  thus, 
To  say  of  him,  who  back  from  death  has 
come,  — 

"He  died  for  us." 

Not  lonely,  though  unnamed.  Battalioned  deep 
With  you  are  ghostly  multitudes,  who  tell 
Nothing,  nor  claim.  Together  to  your  sleep 

Pass,  and  farewell. 
November  u,  1920 


40 


JOHN  KEATS 

OUT  of  the  fevers  and  dark  imaginations 
That  were  his  day,  he  would  turn  to  the  mir- 
rored quietness, 

The  imaged  world,  ordered  from  the  desires 
Of  those  his  fathers  whose  fevers  were  as  his 

own, 

And  there  he  found  the  peace  of  understand- 
ing 
In  Troys  and  Fairylands  and  Heaven  and  Hell. 

And  thence  the  brain  that  was  John  Keats 

took  power 

To  build  an  imaged  world  his  own,  and  devise 
Shape  for  the  fevers  and  dark  imaginations, 
Winnowing,  moulding  all,  till  all  was  beauty. 

Now  again  we  are  but  blind  men,  darkly 
Fingering   circumstance,    sick   men   with   our 

fevers, 

And  his  brief  time  of  passion  and  frustration 
Shines  over  us,  an  image  for  our  doctrine, 
A  sorrow  shaped,  a  speculation  bodied, 
That  we  the  clearlier  may  behold  ourselves 
Because  of  his  bright  moons  and  nightingales. 

And  thus  alone  shall  be  the  world's  salvation. 
41 


SAMPLERS 

IN  praise  of  love,  upon  my  mind 

Samplers  I'll  make  to  be, 
As  lovers  long  ago  designed, 

Emblems  of  courtesy, 
Threading  in  warm  and  frosty  wools 
Their  wisdom's  calendars  and  rules. 

He  errs  to  think  those  hands  were  set 

All  spinster-like  and  cold, 
Who  spelt  a  scarlet  alphabet, 

And  birds  of  blue  and  gold, 
And  made  immortal  garden-plots 
Of  daisies  and  forget-me-nots. 

The  bodkins  wove  an  even  pace, 

Yet  these  are  lyrics  too, 
Breathing  of  spectral  lawn  and  lace, 

Old  ardours  to  renew, 
For  in  the  corners  love  would  keep 
His  fold  among  the  little  sheep. 

So  I  will  samplers  make  as  well, 

Nor  shall  the  colours  lack 
In  shining  characters  to  tell 

Your  lovely  Zodiac, 
And  all  your  kisses  there  and  words 
Shall  spring  again  as  flowers  and  birds. 
42 


TO  WASTE  NOT 


UNDER  the  snow 
Arc  roots  to  blow 

So  soon  with  daffodils, 
And  buds  prepare 
The  cowslips'  wear, 

Buried  below  the  hills. 

Within  the  brake 
So  soon  shall  wake 

The  building  birds  to  sing, 
And  folded  now 
In  every  bough 

Are  bridals  of  the  spring. 

Shall  Love  be  lost 
In  tardy  frost 

When  other  flowers  are  free? 
Or  less  than  birds 
Shake  happy  words 

As  blossoms  from  the  tree? 

O  Love,  make  haste, 
Or  time  will  waste 

The  habit  of  your  lute, 
Prepare  your  string 
To  play  the  spring, 

Or  be  for  ever  mute. 


THE  BOND 

O  FAR  and  well  my  gentleness 

Has  walked  among  your  coverts  green, 

With  your  still  wisdom  to  possess 

My  weary  brain  and  gather  in 

My  thought  from  madness,  as  the  bells 

Do  beggared  flocks  from  stormy  fells. 

Now  mute  and  careful  shall  I  live 
Your  constant  alien  to  be? 
Or,  as  the  honest  fugitive, 
Lend  love  but  sad  security? 
O  love,  be  brave,  and  bid  me  go 
In  freedom  still  your  bondfellow. 


44 


DECISION 


HAD  we  our  bodies  to  provide 
With  rule  for  an  eternal  date, 
Well  should  our  intellectual  pride 
Upon  the  years  for  witness  wait, 
Holding  our  adversary's  will 
But  heresy  for  time  to  kill. 

And  here  where  but  a  mood  goes  by 
And  we  are  folded  from  the  sun, 
In  marriage  of  the  grave  to  lie, 
And  every  argument  is  done, 
Each  burning  hour  of  argument 
Is  but  in  wrangling  folly  spent. 

I  will  no  cunning  words  devise; 
Once  told,  I  can  but  let  you  be 
In  your  own  patient  counsel  wise 
Of  my  love's  simple  honesty, 
While  somewhere  is  an  acre  sown 
That  shall  instruct  us,  bone  by  bone. 


45 


SURETY 


LOVE  is  not  dead. 
We  have  cherished  it  too  long, 
We  have  planted  it  too  deep, 
And  we  have  watered  well 
The  roots  and  branches  spread 
In  earth  and  airy  song. 
Love  has  a  word  to  keep, 
A  word  to  tell. 

Yes,  that  is  all. 

I  know  behind  the  fume 

Of  this  poor  difference 

Love  waits,  nor  grieves  too  much, 

Till  the  old  voices  call, 

And  sings  upon  the  gloom 

Too  sure  an  eloquence 

For  death  to  touch. 

Too  long  a  date 
Has  love  between  us  plied 
For  that  long-trodden  path 
To  wear  in  weeds  or  rain; 
Too  long  in  love's  debate 
Have  we  been  satisfied, 
For  jealousies  of  wrath 
To  blind  the  brain. 

46 


UNION 


SUPPOSE  me  dead;  think  of  the  man  you  made, 
A  moment,  but  as  earth,  unbreathing  more, 
His  garments  folded,  and  his  reckoning  paid 
Of  love,  and  faith,  and  fame;  then,  as  before 
A  chronicle  all  done,  with  finis  writ, 
Ask  if  the  man  you  made  had  truly  been 
More  worth  your  pride  and  daily  watching  wit 
Had  fear  of  you  one  passage  cancelled  clean. 

Would  you  not  say,  serenely  gospelled  then, 
"I  taught  him  faith,  I  bade  his  word  be  said 
Fearing  no  challenge  nor  reproof  of  men; 
And  had  the  happy  courage  that  I  bred 
Once  brought  me  chill  obedience  for  wage, 
This  chronicle  had  been  a  poorer  page"? 

ii 

For,  dear,  I  can  but  serve  you  at  the  rate 
That  is  my  heart's  occasion  —  that  is  all. 
If  I  deny  myself  and  with  you  wait, 
It  is  not  I,  however  you  may  call; 
Something  of  me  must  go  if  I  deny, 
Though  in  denial  shall  be  with  you  still 
A  body  walking  and  a  watchful  eye, 
The  patient  service  of  an  impoverished  will. 

47 


SEEDS  OF  TIME 

For  if  the  love  that  loved,  and  chose,  and  came 
Ever  again  to  you,  nor  ever  found 
Estrangement  in  far  absences,  nor  blame 
For  pilgrimage  to  other  Edens  bound, 
Should  know  one  beauty  by  your  will  denied, 
Thenceforth  how  should  old  faith  be  satisfied? 

in 

But  when  you  bid  me  go  as  beauty  calls, 

Knowing  that  my  desire  could  follow  none 

But  fair  vocation,  and  that  intervals 

In  honest  love  are  still  love's  errands  done, 

When  you  upon  my  embarkation  wait, 

And  cry,  "O  keel!  forth  in  pursuit  of  spring, 

All  Archipelagos  to  navigate! 

You  are  my  ship,  and  this  your  voyaging!"  — 

Then  nothing  lets  between  your  sovran  pride 
And  all  my  kingdom,  nor  is  poor  pretence 
That  over  all  my  fortunes  you  preside 
When  half  my  levies  are  rebellious  pence; 
Then  do  you  govern  that  your  craft  began, 
A  man,  and  not  the  shadow  of  a  man. 


AGAINST  TREASON 

ALL  you  have  been  you  can  be  in  this  hour; 
My  need  will  be  my  need  for  evermore. 
Time  cannot  steal  your  excellence  of  power, 
Nor  stain  the  love  that  liveried  you  before, 
If  you  shall  but  your  wonted  honour  keep, 
And  daily  meet  me  with  quick  truth  of  old, 
And  let  nor  change  nor  dark  alloy  nor  sleep 
Betray  your  former  witness  of  its  mould. 

But  if  in  other  features  you  present 

The  woman  that  I  loved,  how  should  I  make 

Renewal  daily  of  an  old  content 

I  knew  for  her  whose  covenant  you  break? 

Though  you  yourself  betrayed  your  elder  pride, 

I  would  not  in  your  treason  be  allied. 


49 


FOR  THIS  MOMENT 

LET  me,  who  am  your  poet  (nor  thereby 
Think  me  less  yours  that  other  worlds  I  sing 
Than  your  sweet  universe),  now  let  me  try 
Persuasion  such  as  in  an  antique  spring 
Pan  among  cowslip  meadows  might  have  thus 
Found  with  his  shepherd's  daughter  prosper- 
ous: 

"O  love,  why  should  you  ever  look  beyond 
This  gladness  into  past  or  future  time, 
Accusing  in  your  mind  the  heart  now  fond, 
With  phantom  treason  or  ungendered  crime? 
For  mortal  ever  is  the  lover's  kiss 
And  mocks  who  claims  diviner  emphasis. 

"But  one  day  and  another  day  shall  come 
New  kisses,  love,  with  each  its  sovran  power 
Bidding  to-morrow's  history  be  dumb 
And  yesterday  's  but  a  forgotten  hour. 
Fold  up  your  fears,  put  your  sad  fancies  by, 
Lest  in  complaint  our  sweet  occasion  die, 

"Lest  in  complaint  of  sad  example  grow 
But  barren  hours  to-morrow  from  to-day; 
Love  lives  but  by  renewal,  and  can  show 
Constant  succession  never;  therefore  pay 
Proudly  the  charges  of  this  present  need, 
Or  bid  me  sound  on  other  shores  my  reed." 

50 


DEATH  AND  A  LOVER 

DEATH.    A  LOVER.    HIS  DEAD  MISTRESS  ON  A  BIER 
LOVER 

BLIND,  silly  Death,  although  you  nothing  care 

For  my  despair, 
Could  you  not  see  my  darling  was  too  fair 

For  earth  to  lose? 

DEATH 

The  wit,  when  love  comes  to  so  quick  a  close, 

Distempered  goes  — 

No  day  but  earth  shall  build  bright  limbs  as 
those, 

For  me  to  bruise. 

LOVER 

Then,  though  the  world  is  tearless  for  her  sake, 

Some  pity  take 
Upon  my  dark  immortal  sorrow,  —  wake 

This  pretty  one. 

DEATH 

Ten  thousand  years  ago  a  lover  cried, 

"Ah,  let  betide 

What  may,  my  grief  must  ever  more  abide." 
His  grief  is  done. 


SEEDS  OF  TIME 

LOVER 

She  might  have  borne  me  children  straight  and 
strong, 

To  plough  the  long 
Furrows,  and  make  their  ploughing  in  a  song 

Articulate. 

DEATH 

Still  shall  the  green  blades  break  upon  the 
spring,  2 

And  song  shall  bring 
Her  liberty  to  every  captive  thing, 

Early  or  late. 

LOVER 
Though,  Death,  you  govern  me  in  argument, 

Still  goes  unspent 
My  grief,  my  grief.  How  shall  I  be  content, 

O  King  of  Fear? 

DEATH 

I  neither  pity  nor  console.   Farewell. 

Bearers,  the  bell 
Calls  you.  Alone  his  sorrow  let  him  tell. 

She  will  not  hear. 


THE  PLEDGE 

WHEN  love  is  bright  and  whole  again, 
I'll  sing  like  the  bee's  weather, 

I'll  set  my  colours  up  again 

Like  the  cock-pheasant's  feather, 

I'll  find  a  note  to  make  me  one 

With  lyric  birds  that  sing  the  sun. 

I'll  fill  my  songs  with  palmer's  buds 
And  sprigs  of  thorn  for  Whitsunday, 

And  they  shall  dance  as  willow  rods, 
And  shine  with  garlands  of  the  may, 

I'll  be  a  theme  that  takes  the  spring 

From  bushes  where  the  blackbirds  sing. 

I'll  walk  among  my  sheep  again 
And  turn  my  steps  to  numbers, 

When  love  is  bright  and  whole  again 
And  fear  has  gone  to  slumbers, 

With  wings  again  and  flowers  and  stars 

To  be  my  coloured  calendars. 


53 


NUNC  DIMITTIS 

I  HAVE  seen  the  plover's  wing, 
And  the  grey  willow  bough, 
The  sandy  bubbling  spring, 
The  hawk  over  the  plough, 

And  now,  instructed  so, 

I  am  content  to  go. 

Songs  of  the  lake  and  wood, 
Of  water  and  wind  I  have  heard, 
And  I  have  understood 
According  to  Thy  word. 

What,  then,  is  now  to  learn? 

Seaward,  O  soul,  return. 

Though  I  shall  walk  again 
Nor  spring  nor  winter  field, 
Yet  surely  in  my  brain 
Are  spring  and  winter  sealed. 

Earth  you  have  shown  me  all; 

I  am  ready  for  the  call. 


54 


THE  PROVIDENCE 

I  DO  not  ask,  and  yet  you  give, 
You  give,  and  yet  without  design,  • 
Only  some  wonder,  fugitive 
In  you  from  all  the  world,  is  mine. 

You  do  not  bid  me  serve,  and  still 
I  am  all  service  for  your  sake, 
And  gift  by  gift  my  daily  will 
For  me  does  a  new  kingdom  make. 


COVENANT 

I  WOULD  no  sweeter  treasure  know 
From  your  dear  love  than  I  can  give, 

And  in  such  peace  as  you  bestow 
I  pray  for  you  to  live. 

Star  to  rejoicing  star  shall  move 

And  flower  on  happy  flower  shall  shine, 

But  all  the  sorrows  of  our  love  — 
Let  these  be  wholly  mine. 

Yet  that  is  treason.    For  I  bear 

No  prouder  heart  than  is  your  own, 

And  you  would  scorn  the  love  would  share 
Delight  and  grieve  alone. 


PERSUASION 

Then  I  asked:  "Docs  a  firm  persuasion  that  a  thing  Is 
so,  make  it  so?" 

He  replied:  "  All  Poets  believe  that  it  does,  and  in  ages 
of  imagination  this  firm  persuasion  removed  mountains; 
but  many  arc  not  capable  of  a  firm  persuasion  of  any- 
thing." 

BLAKE'S  Marriage  of  Heaven  and  Hell. 


AT  any  moment  love  unheralded 

Comes,  and  is  king.   Then  as,  with  a  fall 

Of  frost,  the  buds  upon  the  hawthorn  spread 

Are  withered  in  untimely  burial, 

So  love,  occasion  gone,  his  crown  puts  by, 

And  as  a  beggar  walks  unfriended  ways, 

With  but  remembered  beauty  to  defy 

The  frozen  sorrows  of  unsceptred  days. 

Or  in  that  later  travelling  he  comes 

Upon  a  bleak  oblivion,  and  tells 

Himself,  again,  again,  forgotten  tombs 

Are  all  now  that  love  was,  and  blindly  spells 

His  royal  state  of  old  a  glory  cursed, 

Saying  "I  have  forgot,"  and  that's  the  worst. 


57 


SEEDS  OF  TIME 


ii 

IF  we  should  part  upon  that  one  embrace, 
And  set  far  courses  ever,  each  from  each, 
With  all  our  treasure  but  a  fading  face 
And  little  ghostly  syllables  of  speech, 
Should  beauty's  moment  never  be  renewed, 
And  moons  on  moons  look  out  for  us  in  vain, 
And  each  but  whisper  from  a  solitude 
To  hear  but  echoes  of  a  lonely  pain,  — 
Still  in  a  world  that  fortune  cannot  change 
Should  walk  those  two  that  once  were  you 

and  I, 
Those  two  that  once  when  moon  and  stars 

were  strange 

Poets  above  us  in  an  April  sky, 
Heard  a  voice  falling  on  the  midnight  sea, 
Mute,  and  for  ever,  but  for  you  and  me. 


PERSUASION 


in 

THIS  nature,  this  great  flood  of  life,  this  cheat 
That  uses  us  as  baubles  for  her  coat, 
Takes  love,  that  should  be  nothing  but  the  beat 
Of  blood  for  its  own  beauty,  by  the  throat, 
Saying,  "  You  are  my  servant  and  shall  do 
My  purposes,  or  utter  bitterness 
Shall  be  your  wage,  and  nothing  come  to  you 
But  stammering  tongues  that  never  can  con- 
fess." 

Undaunted  then  in  answer  here  I  cry, 
"You  wanton,  that  control  the  hand  of  him 
Who  masquerades  as  wisdom  in  a  sky 
Where  holy,  holy,  sing  the  cherubim, 
I  will  not  pay  one  penny  to  your  name 
Though  all  my  body  crumble  into  shame." 


59 


SEEDS  OF  TIME 


IV 

WOMAN,  I  once  had  whimpered  at  your  hand, 
Saying  that  all  the  wisdom  that  I  sought 
Lay  in  your  brain,  that  you  were  as  the  sand 
Should    cleanse    the    muddy    mirrors    of    my 

thought; 

I  should  have  read  in  you  the  character 
Of  oracles  that  quick  a  thousand  lays, 
Looked  in  your  eyes,  and  seen  accounted  there 
Solomons  legioned  for  bewildered  praise. 
Now  have  I  learnt  love  as  love  is.    I  take 
Your  hand,  and  with  no  inquisition  learn 
All    that    your   eyes   can   tell,  and   that's   to 

make 

A  little  reckoning  and  brief,  then  turn 
Away,  and  in  my  heart  I  hear  a  call, 
"I  love,  I  love,  I  love";  and  that  is  all. 


60 


PERSUASION 


v 

WHEN  all  the  hungry  pain  of  love  I  bear, 
And  in  poor  lightless  thought  but  burn  and 

burn, 

And  wit  goes  hunting  wisdom  everywhere, 
Yet  can  no  word  of  revelation  learn, 
\\  hen  endlessly  the  scales  of  yea  and  nay 
In  dreadful  motion  fall  and  rise  and  fall, 
When  all  my  heart  in  sorrow  I  could  pay 
Until  at  last  were  left  no  tear  at  all, 
Then  if  with  tame  or  subtle  argument 
Companions  come  and  draw  me  to  a  place 
Where  words  are  but  the  tappings  of  content, 
And  life  spreads  all  her  garments  with  a  grace, 
I  curse  that  ease,  and  hunger  in  my  heart 
Back  to  my  pain  and  lonely  to  depart. 


61 


SEEDS  OF  TIME 


VI 

NOT  anything  you  do  can  make  you  mine, 
For  enterprise  with  equal  charity 
In  duty  as  in  love  elect  will  shine, 
The  constant  slave  of  mutability. 
Nor  can  your  words  for  all  their  honey  breath 
Outsing  the  speech  of  many  an  older  rhyme, 
And  though  my  ear  deliver  them  from  death 
One  day  or  two,  it  is  so  little  time. 
Nor  does  your  beauty  in  its  excellence 
Excel  a  thousand  in  the  daily  sun, — 
Yet  must  I  put  a  period  to  pretence, 
And  with  my  logic's  catalogue  have  done, 
For  act  and  word  and  beauty  are  but  keys 
To  unlock  the  heart,  and  you,  dear  love,  are 
these. 


62 


PERSUASION 


VII 

NEVER  the  heart  of  spring  had  trembled  so 

As  on  that  day  when  first  in  Paradise 

We  went  afoot  as  novices  to  know 

For  the  first  time  what  blue  was  in  the  skies, 

What  fresher  green  than  any  in  the  grass, 

And  how  the  sap  goes  beating  to  the  sun, 

And  tell  how  on  the  clocks  of  beauty  pass 

Minute  by  minute  till  the  last  is  done. 

But  not  the  new  birds  singing  in  the  brake, 

And  not  the  buds  of  our  discovery, 

The  deeper  blue,  the  wilder  green,  the  ache 

For  beauty  that  we  shadow  as  we  see, 

Made    heaven,    but,    we,    as    love's    occasion 

brings, 
Took  these,  and  made  them  Paradisal  things. 


SEEDS  OF  TIME 


VIII 

THE  lilacs  offer  beauty  to  the  sun, 
Throbbing  with  wonder  as  eternally 
For  sad  and  happy  lovers  they  have  done 
With  the  first  bloom  of  summer  in  the  sky, 
Yet  they  are  newly  spread  in  honour  now, 
Because,  for  every  beam  of  beauty  given 
Out   of   that   clustering    heart,    back   to   the 

bough 

My  love  goes  beating,  from  a  greater  heaven. 
So  be  my  love  for  good  or  sorry  luck 
Bound,  it  has  virtue  on  this  April  eve 
That  shall  be  there  for  ever  when  they  pluck 
Lilacs  for  love.   And  though  I  come  to  grieve 
Long  at  a  frosty  tomb,  there  still  shall  be 
My  happy  lyric  in  the  lilac  tree. 


PERSUASION 


IX 

WHEN  they  make  silly  question  of  my  love, 

And  speak  to  me  of  danger  and  disdain, 

And  look  by  fond  old  argument  to  move 

My  wisdom  to  docility  again, 

When  to  my  prouder  heart  they  set  the  pr'de 

Of  custom  and  the  gossip  of  the  street, 

And  show  me  figures  of  myself  beside 

A  self  diminished  at  their  judgment  seat, 

Then  do  I  sit  as  in  a  drowsy  pew 

To  hear  a  priest  expounding  th'  heavenly  will, 

Defiling  wonder  that  he  never  knew 

With  stolen  words  of  measured  good  and  ill, 

For  to  the  love  that  knows  their  counselling, 

Out  of  my  love  contempt  alone  I  bring. 


SEEDS  OF  TIME 


x 

NOT  love  of  you  is  most  that  I  can  bring, 
Since  what  I  am  to  love  you  is  the  test, 
And  should  I  love  you  more  than  any  thing 
You  would  but  be  of  idle  love  possessed, 
A  mere  love  wandering  in  appetite, 
Counting  your  glories  and  yet  bringing  none, 
Finding  in  you  occasions  of  delight, 
A  thief  of  payment  for  no  service  done. 
But  when  of  labouring  life  I  make  a  song 
And  bring  it  you,  as  that  were  my  reward, 
To  let  what  most  is  me  to  you  belong, 
Then  do  I  come  of  high  possessions  lord, 
And  loving  life  more  than  my  love  of  you 
I  give  you  love  more  excellently  true. 


66 


PERSUASION 


XI 

WHAT  better  talc  could  any  lover  tell 
When  age  or  death  his  reckoning  shall  write 
Than  thus,  "Love  taught  me  only  to  rebel 
Against  these  things,  —  the  thieving  of  delight 
Without  return;  the  gospellers  of  fear 
Who,  loving,  yet  deny  the  truth  they  bear, 
Sad-suited  lusts  with  lecherous  hands  to  smear 
The  cloth  of  gold  they  would  but  dare  not  wear. 
And  love  gave  me  great  knowledge  of  the  trees, 
And    singing    birds,   and   earth   with   all    her 

flowers; 

Wisdom  I  knew  and  righteousness  in  these, 
I  lived  in  their  atonement  all  my  hours; 
Love  taught  me  how  to  beauty's  eye  alone 
The  secret  of  the  lying  heart  is  known." 


SEEDS  OF  TIME 

XII 

THIS  then  at  last;  we  may  be  wiser  far 
Than  love,  and  put  his  folly  to  our  measure, 
Yet  shall  we  learn,  poor  wizards  that  we  are, 
That  love  chimes  not  nor  motions  at  our  plea- 
sure. 

We  bid  him  come,  and  light  an  eager  fire, 
And  he  goes  down  the  road  without  debating, 
We  cast  him  from  the  house  of  our  desire, 
And  when  at  last  we  leave  he  will  be  waiting. 
And  in  the  end  there  is  no  folly  but  this, 
To  counsel  love  out  of  our  little  learning, 
For  still  he  knows  where  rotten  timber  is, 
And  where  the  boughs  for  the  long  winter 

burning, 

And  when  life  needs  no  more  of  us  at  all, 
Love's  word  will  be  the  last  that  we  recall. 


THE  END 


68 


DATE  DUE 


INT  tD  IN  U.S 


AA      000011  130   ; 


